In today's environment of rapid technological change companies can not rely on incremental innovations alone. To sustain long-term competitiveness companies need to develop radical innovations as well. Such innovations typically incorporate new and highly complex technologies, create new markets...

Manufacturers usually benefit by dividing their innovation processes into distinct phases in order to ensure that the development activities are performed efficiently in an appropriate sequence. Users usually do not apply such structured processes. They follow a more intuition-driven approach....

Prior research on user innovation has concentrated on markets in which products (e.g., mountain bikes, kitesurfing equipment, tools, etc.) are typically purchased by those users who modify them. However, in numerous markets, this is not the case, for example, those in which equipment is rented....

Innovative, distinct products and no "cheaper" copies of the "rich" world are essential in order to succeed at the "Base of the Pyramid" (BoP). However, this type of innovation requires more, in-depth information on the BoP and solution spaces, which are both difficult to access. Literature...

Integrating lead users into the product development process is a promising source of innovations. While the lead user approach is clearly established in academia, the implementation into management practice is ambiguous. Conducting a literature review of 255 articles in business press we show...

The existing research on the behavior of user innovators has focused almost exclusively on younger users. In light of the demographic shift and the increasing importance of the "Silver Market" segment (customers 55 years plus), we analyzed whether important determinants of user innovator...